AGASSIZ'S METHOD OF TEACHING 189 



trial, if it came, would have to be on Elie de Beaumont's "Sys- 

 teme des Montagnes," a work I had already read attentively 

 and abstracted, so that I knew it fairly well ; but I went over it 

 again and therefore I knew it in a way that would have made it 

 possible to reproduce it almost verbatim ; given to much train- 

 ing in committing to memory I could do a work of that kind 

 passing well. 



It is to be noted that in the four years I was with Agassiz, I 

 had no kind of examination, save what he gave when he ques- 

 tioned and in some measure tested my training. For the rest 

 there was nothing but criticisms of my work and discussions, 

 endless discussions. These gave him all he cared to have as to 

 the progress I had made. Now and then he questioned me hard. 

 I recall by chance how he tested my knowledge of a book which 

 I had been using in the identification of some mollusca; he 

 sought to find how far I had compassed the work or had merely 

 used it in a perfunctory way. He had helped me to know the 

 difference between knowledge and ignorance and to measure 

 my accomplishments as I went along without any kind of 

 routine tests. 



Because I needed to be away to my own parts of the country, 

 the examinations were given me at an earlier date than was 

 then the custom, I believe in May. My thesis was delivered 

 a month earlier and approved by Jeffries Wyman as sufficient. 

 This was told me before the time of the formal examination. 

 Since this inquiry was interesting, as a type of the method 

 used at that time in testing candidates, I will give an account 

 of it. I had made no formal preparation for the questioning 

 I was to meet, except to go to the shore and live out of doors 

 for some days, putting the whole matter out of my mind, en- 

 deavoring to get into the admirable state of the little darkey 

 who, when reproved for not caring, answered, " I doan keer, an' 

 I doan keer if I doan keer" ; with the result that when I faced 

 my judges, it was with a sense of rather amused indifference, 

 which I have experienced in the presence of other forms of 



